Party president M K Stalin. (Photo: X)

 Chennai: Admitting that failures in the organization led to the debacle of the DMK in the elections, party president M K Stalin called for an introspection by all members and office-bearers, advising them to talk politics at home with children and relatives and win their confidence and to strive for enrolling hardworking new members into the party.

Speaking at the executive committee meeting of the party on Saturday, which he described as a historic one, Stalin unveiled a plan for restructuring the party by fixing tenures and age limits for those in various leadership positions at all levels and increased the number of party districts from 77 to 110 for easier administration and for entrusting responsibilities with more leaders.

Focusing on changing the contours of the party’s regional units in the urban areas, perhaps in a bid to regain the hold that the DMK had lost in the cities, as the Assembly elections proved, he said that most leaders had lost the ability to work in tandem with office-bearers despite not losing their hard work, determination, fighting spirit and strong grounding in principles.

Taking a direct swipe at the intra-party feuds, Stalin said that some party men smile and bow before rival party leaders but frown at their party colleagues fearing that others in the party might grow and reach their level of importance. No party could grow in a district with only the district secretary and no election could be won with just an efficient MLA in the constituency, he said.

Only when every cadre worked like a functionary would the party grow and flourish and only when elders welcomed young people into the party fold, a strong political force would emerge, he said, adding that the DMK could not and should not function like the present ruling party in the State that had come to power without fighting for the people, without holding any protests and without a proper organizational structure.

The DMK was a permanent force as its members and leaders came into politics not out of boredom but to protest and fight for the rights and its future would not be confined to electoral triumphs and losses alone as it was not a party that would sleep till the next elections after a debacle, he said.

Even as an opposition, the DMK would fight for the welfare of the people and was a known ‘specialist’ in staging successful comebacks, he said and assured those who did not vote for the party that he would fight for their welfare, too, just as it strove, as a ruling party, for the welfare of even those who did not vote for them in the earlier election, he said.

While the present Chief Minister was treating the Assembly as a cinema set and delivering punch dialogues, besides renaming all the schemes launched by the earlier government, the DMK was intertwined with the everyday life of the people whether the party won the election or not, he said.

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